The bowling and conditions have been death for tailenders so I wouldn't be too harsh

Yeah maybe you wouldn't expect them to score too many but that doesn't change the fact that they batted very badly. They played some terrible shots. Bell's was one of the worst and he isn't even a tail-ender.

I need u like Henry Nicholls needs batting school
He was terrible in that series
I need u like Ross Taylor needed to be fit
He's way better than Henry Nicholls
And now all I can think about is your smile
and that ****** test series too
Losing to Australia sucked and I miss you

What's happened to Anderson's batting, he used to be a decent number xi, who would stay there for his oppo, now he just seems to think he's a batsman.

Yes, I think a big part of the prolific successes of Test teams (e.g. England up until recently, Australia throughout late 1990s-2005) is the performance of the lower-order when the top order inevitably go through bad patches and they've not looked good. Of course, we cannot hope for them to be better than the top order, but the dismissals were not great.

Yeah, but that was such a random event. Came in the middle of a real dry run too. Don't think he got a 50 for 10 months either side of that.

He played some proper innings in 2008, then he had that partnership with Swann at Headingley, where they just slogged their way to a pair of 60's, and he's played like that since. Even his contributions with the bat since then have been complete slogathons
(see Trent Bridge, against India) with his 50 in Abu Dhabi probably being the exception.

Yeah maybe you wouldn't expect them to score too many but that doesn't change the fact that they batted very badly. They played some terrible shots. Bell's was one of the worst and he isn't even a tail-ender.